shirestow, one of the most
conspicuous characteristics of that particular type of borough, was
further increased by the liberty which some burgesses enjoyed to
"commend" themselves to a lord of their own choosing, promising to that
lord suit and service and perhaps rent in return for protection. Over
these burgesses the lords could claim jurisdictional rights, and these
were in some cases increased by royal grants of special rights within
certain "sokes." The great boroughs were honeycombed with sokes, or
areas of seignorial jurisdiction, within which the royal reeve's
authority was greatly restricted while that of the lord's reeve took
precedence. Even the haws, being "burhs" or strongholds within a
stronghold, enjoyed a local "peace" which protected from official
intrusion. Besides heterogeneity of tenure and jurisdiction in the
borough, there was also heterogeneity of status; there were burh-thegns
and cnihts, mercatores, burgesses of various kinds, the three groups
representing perhaps military, commercial and agricultural elements. The
burh generally shows signs of having been originally a village
settlement, surrounded by open fields, of which the borough boundary
before 1835 will suggest the outline. This area was as a rule eventually
the area of borough jurisdiction. There is some evidence pointing to the
fact that the restriction of the borough authority to this area is not
ancient, but due to the Norman settlement. The wide districts over which
the boroughs had had authority were placed under the control of the
Norman castle which was itself built by means of the old English levy of
"burh-work." The borough court was allowed to continue its work only
within its own immediate territory, and, to prevent conflict, the castle
was placed outside the borough. Losing their place in the national
scheme of defence, the burgess "cnihts" made commerce their principal
object under the encouragement of the old privileges of the walled
place.

Besides the great co-operative strongholds in which many lords had
burgesses, there were small boroughs held by a single lord. In many
cases boroughs of this "seignorial" type were created upon the royal
estates. Out of the king's vill, as a rule the jurisdictional centre of
a hundred, there was sometimes created a borough. The lines of division
before Domesday Book are obscure, but it is probable that in some cases,
by a royal grant of jurisdiction, the inhabitants of a populous roya